When people find out that my three youngest girls were all home schooled they look at me with shock and admiration. Then, they always ask why I decided to do it.
My answers are probably similar to many other home schooling parents, even if we all have our unique reasons and ways of handling things. We do it because we believe in doing the best for our children. My personal reason for choosing to pull my two third graders out of public school, and never let my youngest step foot in a classroom, was simply because I felt I was sending them off to a penitentiary each day.
At the time, we lived in Baltimore and were one of the few white families in a non-white neighborhood. I didn’t think much about it at the time after growing up in the Hispanic parts of Southern California. I loved the townhouse we lived in and the scenery was beautiful. I was single at the time, and the rent was affordable. However, it quickly became apparent that Dorothy wasn’t in Kansas any longer.
My children were picked on, ridiculed and threatened on a daily basis. In addition, in school the obedient children were punished right along with the vast majority of troublemakers. My kids would also often go without lunch and there was never any free time on the playground. “Too many fights break out,” I was told by one teacher. In third grade!
No matter how many times I went to the school to talk with the principal and teachers, I’d just hear the same excuses over and over again. When one of my daughters had a knife pulled on her due to the fact that she had blond hair, they never went back to public school again.
Of course, my story may be extreme, but it’s real. Top that all off with my girls learning the same things that were taught to them in first grade while we were living in California, and I knew I had done the right thing by pulling them out of public school. At home they got a whole education.
No, not all public schools and not all children are as terrible as in my situation, but some are. Even if the children were all well-behaved and got along perfectly, the fact remained that they were getting a sub-par education. There was no way they’d be prepared for the real world.
Has home schooling truly made a difference? You bet! My two oldest girls went to public school from kindergarten through high school. Back then I trusted that they were learning all they should in order to live independent, stable lives. Instead, it’s my three youngest who have lucked out. I know that if they needed to, even at their young ages, they could make it on their own. They could have full-time jobs, know how to pay bills, cook, budget money, and be frugal. Their knowledge is also vast. They can tell a Van Gogh from a Renoir; they know about cultures most children have never heard of; and they have read all the great classics.
Although I started home schooling just to save my children from potential harm, it was a blessing in disguise. Of course, I had less time for myself, but I’m forever grateful to have had the opportunity to not only be their mother, but their educator and mentor as well.